Ballots, Not Bullets: States Gun Battles Boil Down to the Ballot

Editor’s Note: The stage is set to see which states want more or less gun control. Is the fight raging on in your state?

Gun-control advocates insist public sentiment is on their side, but ballot initiatives in the states paint a much muddier picture.

Voters in states such as Missouri, Washington and Illinois have all recently weighed in on the hot-button issue or will have a say come November — and they’re not settling into clear-cut patterns.

In Washington, polls show a measure to require background checks on all guns is poised for passage, but so is another measure that would mirror federal policy, which exempts private sales from the checks.

“I personally don’t oppose background checks, but I want to do it the right way,” said Alan Gottlieb, the head of a group that is backing the exemption measure. If both pass in November, a state court might have to weigh in to settle the matter.

In Missouri, meanwhile, 61 percent of voters this week approved a measure asking whether the state government is obligated to uphold the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

A year and a half after the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting, the zeal for gun-control proposals has cooled in state legislatures. But voters are beginning to see the issue put directly before them — a move that allows organizers on both sides to tailor ballot initiatives.

And wording matters. A recent Quinnipiac survey showed broad support for stricter background checks, but the number fell to 50 percent when people were asked whether they supported “stricter gun control.”

In Nevada, gun-rights advocates won a minor victory recently when a district judge ordered organizers to rewrite a ballot petition to expand background checks to specify the criminal penalties that would result if the initiative were to become law.